


Flashpoint

by Terminallydepraved



Series: Works for Others [58]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Flirting, M/M, Meta, Non-Graphic Violence, Panic, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-02-13 07:16:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21490477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Terminallydepraved/pseuds/Terminallydepraved
Summary: This isn't Gavin or Nines's first undercover case together, but for a moment, Nines fears it might just be their last.
Relationships: Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed
Series: Works for Others [58]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/378145
Comments: 20
Kudos: 236





	Flashpoint

**Author's Note:**

> woot woot thanks go to the lovely chowbot on twitter for this particular prompt! i hope you guys enjoy it!

“I still don’t get why you get to sit in the nice warm car while I freeze my nutsack off in the snow.”

The corner of Nines’s lips quirked in what might have been mistaken as a smile if there were anyone else nearby to witness it. He looked down at the blinking red light of the squad car radio and switched his internal transceivers to the proper channel. “It’s forty-three degrees outside, Detective Reed,” Nines recited calmly. “You are in no danger of freezing any of your extremities off any time soon.”

Gavin snorted. The sound came across the radio in a burst of frosty static. Nines turned his head and looked out the driver’s side window of the car and focused his vision until he could just make out the clouds of fog coming in regular bursts from Gavin’s slumped figure by the opening of the alley. He was dressed as a homeless man, his leather jacket replaced by a worn, threadbare hoodie and grease-stained jeans that Gavin had brought from home. Even with his hood pulled up over his head, Nines could read the impatience in his body language. He didn’t really blame him for getting antsy; they’d been watching the corner for over four hours, and even Nines’s patience was beginning to wane. 

“That’s easy for you to say,” his partner muttered into the bugged collar of his hoodie. “I could lock you in a freezer and your dick wouldn’t even twitch.”

“You are aware that they record these conversations we have, right?” Nines remarked, giving the street another cursory scan. It’d become almost habitual in the time they’d been stationed here to scan the street, scan the faces of passersby, and search for their suspect among the crowd. “I’m sure the Lieutenant is going to love hearing you talk about genitals while you’re supposed to be on the lookout for our man.”

Gavin laughed, a low, rugged sound that warmed Nines up even though he wasn’t cold. “Have you ever listened to the surveillance recordings other guys put in? Babe, it’s  _ all  _ dick talk. If Anderson isn’t used to it by now, then there’s no helping him. You hear that, Anderson? My dick is fucking frigid and I’m gonna file for worker’s comp as soon as I hobble my way back into the warmth. Where are the goddamn standard-issue dick heaters in our tool kit? My partner is a suped up super computer and my dick is forced to go cold.”

“The humanity of it all,” Nines said, rolling his eyes as his lips formed a full smile. “You suffer so much for the sake of duty.”

“Damn right I do,” Gavin grumbled, the burst of fog growing as he sighed out a lungful of air. “Seriously though. Where is the guy? I thought he had a schedule he followed.”

Nines hummed, doing another scan. It was nearly nine p.m. Their suspect had a routine in the way he dealt with his drugs, one that had been traceable and eventually led to them staking out this particular part of town. By all rights he should have shown his face an hour or two ago, peddling Red Ice to the vagrants that lived around these parts, or, more insidiously, offering free samples to new faces to grow his clientele through fostering new addictions. 

Gavin was a new face. The weather was growing colder. He was the perfect target for a business-minded scumbag to go for, and yet… 

“Let’s give it another half hour,” Nines decided. “We’ll go if nothing else happens.”

“Thank fucking god.” Through the window Nines could see Gavin furiously scrubbing at his hands to warm them up. “I’m serious about needing a dick warmer after all of this.”

“I’m sure we’ll find you something to fit the bill.”

Gavin’s tone turned salacious. “You volunteering?” 

Nines rolled his eyes, looking at the receiver in wonder. How a man could leer with just his words was a little astonishing. Gavin Reed was a talented individual, that much was certain. 

“Again, need I remind you we are being recorded right now?” Nines said indulgently, swinging his head back around to put eyes on his partner once more. But Gavin wasn’t still sitting slouched over, warming his hands. Nines stiffened as he saw Gavin sitting upright now, a strange man standing in front of him. 

Initially, Nines didn’t allow himself to jump to conclusions. Over the course of their stakeout they had witnessed people approaching Gavin, all in efforts to give him money, ask him if he needed help, and whether or not he had a place to sleep come nightfall. Not many people, but enough that he knew not to immediately assume the person was the man they were looking for. 

“Gavin?” Nines said quietly, still resting his hand on the steering wheel, the other on the ignition. “Status.”

“Whaddya want?” came the slurred response over the radio. Nines instantly recognized Gavin’s speech affectation; it was part of his character, part of the script for interacting with people they weren’t quite sure was the person they were looking for. “You got any change, man?”

The person’s voice was barely audible over the radio. Nines could barely make out, “Nah, bro. Got something else that might warm you up, if you’re down.”

The leather around the steering wheel creaked under the force of Nines’s grip. This was it. This had to be it. “We need proof, Gavin,” Nines said lowly, probably unnecessarily. “You need to see the drugs before we can move in.”

Gavin’s breath was loud in his ear. With his sensors turned up to their highest setting, Nines could almost make out his heartbeat too. “What do you got?” Gavin asked shrewdly, shifting himself onto his knees. “Booze? Weed?”

“Nah, man. Something better.” Nines saw a hand extend, gesturing towards the alley at Gavin’s back. Then, he extended his hand. “Can’t show you out here though. Then everyone would be at my door wanting some too.”

“Gavin,” Nines said sharply. “If you go down there I’ll lose visuals on you.”

There was a pause. A moment of nothing, and then Gavin took the hand and let the man pull him to his feet. 

“I’ll take anything if it puts some feeling back in me,” Gavin rasped. Translation: I’ll do anything and go anywhere so long as it gets us out of the cold faster. That idiot. 

“Gavin, don’t you dare—”

But they were gone, slipped behind the blindspot of the alley entrance, and Nines was left sitting in the car, the sound of Gavin’s breathing heavy and loud in his ears. 

This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all. He debated calling for backup, but even though every inch of him screamed at the thought of leaving him alone with a potentially armed drug dealer, Nines knew that Gavin wasn’t in danger just yet. At least, they assumed. The man with him was most likely their suspect given the brief conversation. Nines frowned at the mouth of the alley. Was it worth potentially ruining the operation just to be preemptive? 

“Gavin,” he said quietly, forcing himself to remain calm. Gavin was a seasoned detective. He had the common sense to mitigate his own personal risk, right? “Move back into my line of sight.”

More breathing. The other man was speaking now, but he remained at a distance that made it difficult to pick up exactly what he was saying. Good. That meant he wasn’t near Gavin.

“Show me what you got,” came Gavin’s voice, much louder. “I ain’t got all night.”

“Gavin,” Nines repeated. “Get back into the open.”

Another rasp of a reply he couldn’t parse out. Gavin snorted, blustered, “What the hell do you mean, are you a cop? Do I fuckin’ look like a cop, man? You think I’d be freezing my ass out on this corner if I had a fuckin’ pension to keep me warm?”

Nines’s processors stuttered. “Get out of there, Gavin,” he ordered sharply. “If he’s about to make you, then abandon—”

Gavin let out a sudden yelp. “What the fu—” There came a loud clatter, the sounds of flesh hitting flesh. Gavin swore, another voice shouted—much,  _ much _ closer than it had been before—and then… 

And then the link went silent. Dead. 

Time moved strangely in moments of despair, in moments of overwhelming shock. Nines knew of the phenomenon, but only in regard to how it affected humans during stressful situations. For an android, all time was arbitrary. One could either process its passing naturally or fill the milliseconds with thousands of computations in between every partial tick of a clock’s hands. 

Nines wasn’t sure where he resided in that moment. His processors seemed to freeze up and go dead in sync with that horrifying silence. They also seemed to throw themselves into overdrive, a million micro-actions performed faster than should be possible. Nines vaguely registered calling for backup.  _ Officer down request immediate backup ambulance ambulance now fast help.  _ He fleetingly recognized his hands moving, reaching for the door of the car. Cold air stung his cheeks and sent off sensors updating him on the status of the world around him. 

Mentally, however, Nines felt none of it. He couldn’t. Every iota of focus he had was locked on the whitenoise issuing out of the radio transmitter. On the lack of Gavin bleeding through at all.

Running as fast as he could, the worst-case scenarios flooded his mind in a wave too strong to sweep aside. There was no gunshot. That ruled out a few options, but there were always knives, needles, and fists. Gavin’s blood pooled along the frozen ground, the puddles steaming as the breath at his lips stopped showing in the air. Gavin convulsing: a too-full needle jammed in his vein, pump pressed down to the base. It didn’t take much to overdose on Red Ice. They’d seen it time and time again. 

Nines knew what it looked like. He knew it too well to keep Gavin’s face from superimposing over the memories until fear blotted out the rest. His feet pounded against the sidewalk, his arms tucked close to his sides as he pitched forward, sprinted as fast as his body could go. Why hadn’t he parked closer? Why hadn’t he insisted on being the one to engage the suspect? 

_ “You volunteering?” _ Gavin’s voice echoed in his ears, so teasing, so promising. If that was… No. He’d find Gavin safe and sound, more perverted promises on his lips and a grin to wash it all down. The last thing he heard Gavin say to him wouldn’t be some shitty ass pick-up line. It wouldn’t be. No. 

Nines’s vision tinted into grayscale, the machine in him taking over as emotion threatened to overwhelm him. Time seemed to blur the faster he ran. Speeding up. Slowing down. Years worth of memories crashed through him, each one chased by another fear he’d spent so long trying to repress.

It was only in moments like these that he remembered how fragile life could be. How easily it could snuff out, break into pieces… 

Nines reached for his gun and drew it.

He turned the corner. 

He saw bodies on the ground— and for a moment, for one blinding, world-stopping moment, that was all Nines could see. All he could process. 

But then Gavin lifted his head, his nose bloodied but his grin as white as snow. “It’s about damn time you got here,” he said, spitting a globule of bloody spit to the pavement. He glared at the pinned man beneath his knee. “This asshole decided to clock me with his elbow. Broke the fucking radio  _ and  _ my fucking nose.”

Nines stared down at him, barely comprehending the words. The suspect’s face turned towards him; errantly, Nines processed the facial recognition match. They’d done it. They’d caught the person they were after, and Gavin was still here. Still clouding the air with every breath he took. Still thrumming away with the  _ thud-thud-thud  _ of a heart beating healthily away in a human chest. 

“Hey, Nines!” Gavin called out sharply as the body beneath him gave a token wriggle. “Did you call for backup? Help me cuff this fucker so I can get my ass off the ice already.”

Cold. Gavin was cold. Bleeding. Nines jolted and reached for his cuffs. He stepped forward and gently pushed Gavin off of the perp, taking his place and fastening the cuffs around the man’s wrists with quick, practiced motions. Backup was already on the way. That was fine. The threat was neutralized. Everything was fine. 

“Nines?” Gavin called out again, softer this time. Nines vaguely processed a warm, sudden weight on his right shoulder. A hand. “You okay? Why aren’t you yelling at me right now? I feel like you’d be yelling at me—”

Nines covered Gavin’s hand and held it in place when it felt like it was on the verge of falling away. Warm. It felt warm. He closed his eyes and listened close:

_ Thud-thud-thud-thud.  _

Gavin sighed. “I freaked you out, didn’t I?”

Nines didn’t look away from the man he held trapped under his knee. Flecks of Gavin’s blood spotted his knuckles, spotted the filthy ice around their feet. He simply nodded. Gavin sighed again. 

Slowly, Gavin sank into a crouch at his side. He moved his hand and wrapped his entire arm around Nines’s shoulders, pulling him against his side. Not much. Not enough to really make him feel better, but as much as they could risk given the criminal they still needed to hold down. Belatedly, Nines realized how unprofessional this sort of thing was. He shouldn’t be falling apart right now. He shouldn’t need to be comforted like this while on the job. 

“I’m fine, Nines,” Gavin said quietly, low enough for only him to hear. “Relax.” 

“You… ran off,” Nines said woodenly. “I couldn’t hear you.”

Gavin held him tighter. “I know. I’m an idiot. You can yell at me once we get home.”

At least he was self-aware. Nines let that comfort him as he finally lifted his head and looked at Gavin properly. His nose really had been broken. Not badly, but it would need resetting once they were out of the cold and away from prying eyes. Gavin wouldn’t mind the injury. To him they were things to brag about. Things to show off. 

“You really are an idiot,” Nines said weakly, lifting his hand to grab a handful of Gavin’s filthy hoodie. He yanked him closer.

It wasn’t smart to do this now, and it certainly went against a few dozen rules, but Nines couldn’t care. He dragged Gavin closer and pressed their lips together, tasting blood, analyzing it automatically. The perp beneath his knee stayed quiet, didn’t struggle now that he knew he’d been caught. Nines fleetingly wondered if he was aware of what they were doing above him. Probably not though. Nines held him too firmly for him to wriggle around and turn his head to see. 

The kiss didn’t last long either way. Gavin was wincing already, so Nines pulled back to give him room to breathe. 

“You know we’re being recorded right now, right?” Gavin gasped, not fighting the embrace in the slightest. 

“The Lieutenant’s heard worse,” Nines answered, kissing him again. He could stand to let professionalism slide, if only just this once. He could hear the police sirens in the distance anyway. They could take care of the rest.

Nines would just take care of Gavin. 

**Author's Note:**

> and there you have it! if you liked this consider leaving a nice comment for me below, and if you wanna see more of my dbh shenanigans feel free to check me out on twitter @tdcloud_writes! until next time!


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